echoes in time
by riouu
Summary: "It's the wrong way, Alpha," Fey tells him, and Alpha must figure out the correct path before it's too late. What's more important - the success of the mission or the life of his old best friend? Alpha/Fey Rune, Includes character death, sort of.


**Title:** echoes in time (endlessly)

**Author:** riou

**Length: **3673 words.

**Fandom:** Inazuma Eleven (Chrono Stone).

**Pairing:** Alpha/Fey Rune.

**Warnings:** Violence. Character death (sort of).

**Summary: **"It's the wrong way, Alpha," Fey tells him. What's more important - the success of the mission, or the life of his old best friend?

**Written:** 11th-13th April 2012.

**foreword:**

i wrote this one entirely to Echo (jelly boy remix) by Donawhale. of course it's not mandatory that you listen to that song while reading, because i know a lot of people hate reading with noise in their ears like that, but have a listen if you'd like, because i feel that song fits the mood of this fic very well. there is hopelessness in this, yes, so you might not think the song fits at first; but there is also fierce determination and love.

it does not really follow canon as i wrote this before the pilot episode of Chrono Stone aired. this is more my take on Alpha and Fey and the threads that bind them.

* * *

**echoes in time (endlessly);**

"What are you doing?"

At the question he comes to a pause on the tracks; the single, hovering pathway that cuts through this phantasmagoric and alien landscape, where there are stars wheeling both above and below and the air is cold, thin, and clear. A winding silver river dances through the starlight beneath the walkway, continuing forever. Its waters appear both liquid and diaphanous all at once, though from certain angles it appears to be a collection of semi-translucent strings rather than a river one might find on earth. Alpha is undertaking a journey through this dreamlike location from his present to his past, to someone else's present, or maybe their soon-to-be-now if he happens to arrive a little early. Whatever the case, he is walking back up the tracks in the direction of what _he_ perceives to be distant past, and he seems to have acquired an unwanted travelling companion.

"It's the wrong way, Alpha," Fey tells him, though Alpha merely snorts derisively and continues onwards regardless. What does he know? This is the right way. Alpha has a mission to complete, and the directive points him back up these tracks, back to the source of everything that is wrong. In his world, where traversing the tracks of time and space is possible, a certain few are capable of returning to the origin of their problems in order to eliminate them.

Yes. Eliminate. Destroy the source and right the wrongs. That is Alpha's mission.

"Don't follow me," he says to Fey, not bothering to look back over his shoulder, not wanting to look him in the eye. Not daring to, even. Looking at Fey sends Alpha back to the days when he was young and naive, and they would spend hours playing together under the sun, oblivious to the damage that was caused by the very thing they both loved so dearly. Sometimes, if he looks too long, Alpha feels a small part of himself beginning to question the mission he's taken on. It's an insult to those childhood memories, this task, and he's betraying them, Fey, and himself by attempting to carry it out.

It's a painful thought. Almost. It might truly hurt him were Alpha to drop his guard for long enough to dwell on it too much.

"We're not supposed to go back. Not to change things like this." Fey is indeed correct. It's a written rule that such drastic deeds are forbidden; for messing with the threads of time is a dangerous business, and the results of weaving or unweaving them can be unimaginable and deadly in the most frightening of ways, from erasing your own existence to erasing your entire planet from that particular timestream. If you're not careful with your jumps, you can be thrown without warning into a far-off world that was never your own and never will be. Alpha knows the risks, knows that the job he's doing is technically illegal, but he also understands that his world will surely be a better place if he succeeds. Most importantly, he knows the coordinates. So long as he stays on the tracks, leaps at the right point, and obeys the orders communicated to him by the Commander, he'll be fine in the end.

So he keeps walking.

"Please, Alpha!" There's desperation in his voice now - Fey doesn't want him to go, for some reason Alpha cannot quite make sense of. Once more he finds himself halting and this time he turns, too, seeking out and capturing the other boy's gaze. Alpha stares hard at him for a couple of seconds and searches for answers in his eyes. A star explodes somewhere in the vastness of this curious otherworld, this In-Between. Trails of twinkling dust spat out by the implosion spiral in intricate patterns across the heavens, snaking their way over and under the tracks, winding about Alpha's shoulders as a delicate, glinting scarf.

Lazily he reaches up to brush the shimmering substance from his uniform, and replies, "It's my mission."

"To destroy soccer?" A truly pained look crosses Fey's soft features. It does not suit him, Alpha finds himself musing. "You'd destroy the soccer we used to love and take away all our treasured mem-?"

"Enough," Alpha cuts in sharply before he can finish the word that might cause him to falter. It wouldn't, he knows that already, because he's built himself up to be a strong person with an iron will, all his weaknesses eased out or sealed away so deep that he's sure to never find them again. But he doesn't want to risk it. "You're the only one still clinging to the past, living in naivety and lies. It's my mission, and I will complete it. That's all there is to say on the matter. Don't follow me."

"Alpha!"

Ignoring that plaintive cry of his name, Alpha turns away and continues up the tracks alone, dismissing the conversation altogether. However, he does anticipate that Fey will keep doggedly wandering after him for a while, which he does - what he does not expect is to feel Fey's fingers curling round his wrist all of a sudden. He pulls him to a standstill and forces him to face him, and just when Alpha is opening his mouth to reprove the other boy for this, Fey leans up and plants a kiss over his lips. For those few seconds following, Alpha is at a loss of what to do, momentarily struck defenceless, silenced by the kiss of his once-friend turned rival. Somehow that kiss feels like it was a long time coming.

Soon enough, though, he gathers himself together again, and forcefully shoves Fey and all the pleas he tried to convey through the contact away from him. They stare at each other, bathed in the glittering aura of dying stars and standing on a train track that leads back through time, past their childhood and their births to the myriad generations that came before, and all the limitless existences that were present before humans ever walked the earth. Alpha's words have failed him and he does not know what to say, so after an extended pause he simply turns on his heel and keeps walking.

"...Don't betray your heart," Fey says to him in parting, and he huffs a gentle, saddened sigh.

Alpha wakes up.

His mission begins today.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

He knew he would follow him. He's a stubborn thing, Fey Rune, with the kind of boundless enthusiasm and determination that is infuriatingly difficult to topple. Alpha remembers those traits of his well enough. He thinks he sees some of that familiar emotion in the boy, Matsukaze Tenma, too. It still bothers him to find Fey already with the boy when he attempts to confront him for the first time in the past, as though he leapt just a little further back in order to meet him first.

There's conviction in Fey's eyes and a bemused sort of anxiousness in Tenma's, before finally the latter breaks the tense quiet by asking, "Who are you?"

"My name is Alpha," he tells Tenma, looking away from Fey, who remains silent. "I'm here to put an end to soccer, and to your winds of revolution."

Somehow, it feels as though he's said those words before, or will be saying them again soon.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

Two months on and the mission is ultimately a success, but the crushing horror of what just happened, and what he just saw firsthand, is killing Alpha. It tears him apart from the inside out, biting, clawing, scratching its way up his throat, an acrid and caustic bile. He really does feel like he's about to vomit.

Their opinions and ideas on it all separated them a while ago into different factions, where they parted ways and pushed themselves away from all the bitterness and leftover feelings still tangled between them. Fey stood up to him, though, when he found out what the Commander wanted to do - he followed Alpha through time, still trying desperately to save soccer- no, it was more than that.

"Save soccer and our old friendship!" he shouted to him, just before he was brutally gunned down.

Alpha doesn't even know how it happened. He received no forewarning, no hint from the Commander that the match would be interrupted if it looked as though he would lose. His mind is unable to comprehend anything right now and Fey's last words are still ringing in his ears. Deafened by that final request and all the emotions carried through it, he shudders and curls in on himself, arms wound tightly round legs that are drawn against his shaking chest; a protective ball that does not do its intended job of blocking everything out, especially when half of the things he's trying to hide from are lurking within.

This is wrong. It's so, so wrong that he can't stand it. Though he'd renounced their friendship in a fit of anger and frustration all those years ago, he never wished for Fey or the others to end up hurt over this, never wanted to see the colour of his blood painting a soccer field from two hundred or so years ago. He never imagined the Commander would go to such extreme lengths in order to secure the success of this mission. He never even briefly wondered what kind of 'elimination' he might mean - he merely assumed that crushing the young Tenma's will would be more than enough to put an end to the damage he'd cause down the line.

This is wrong. Alpha's head is aching.

_GO BACK_.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

He knows the coordinates. It's all in his head, memorised perfectly and stored away in some metaphorical box within the shelves of his mind. Alpha digs through that box as he races along the tracks, betraying orders, heading back once again. Return to the source. If he can get there in time, he can reverse all this before the Commander can shut him down. This blatant disregard for El Dorado's higher-ups won't matter in the end, because he'll change it, and he'll complete his mission properly, and there will be no need to use drastic measures. The Commander will never have known he leapt back again.

It's a familiar journey, almost - he is surrounded by the cold light of countless glistening stars, and the air is crisp, like the In-Between is caught in a state of perpetual autumn. But this sensation was not present before; this helplessness drowning his heart; the desire to scream burning in his lungs; the urge to claw at his own skin until he bleeds red onto the pitch too. Before, he never saw flashes of crimson and bullets and the lifeless body of his old friend whenever he closed his eyes.

This is his fault.

He's the only one with the coordinates, aside from the Commander. He's the only one who can fix this.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

"You look...off? Shell-shocked, almost." Fey comments when he next sees him, in a timestream two months before the last Ending. Try as he might Alpha can't help but stare at him for a moment and feel a great relief at the sight of him alive and unsoiled, his face clear of his own blood. He stares a moment longer than he should, perhaps, and Fey seems to notice that. He opens his mouth as though to question but then Matsukaze Tenma speaks up, enquiring for what he thinks is the first time, "Who are you?"

"_I saved you_," Alpha wants to express to them both, but instead he remains briefly silent, until his inner voice has stopped shaking, and then he answers Tenma with as little emotion as possible. "My name is Alpha. I'm here to put an end to soccer, and to your winds of revolution."

Because that is still his mission. This time, Alpha wants to do it right.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

He fails, utterly.

The air is tainted with oily black smoke and dust particles twist lazily into a sky that looks far too blue and carefree for this sort of situation. When he speaks, his voice barely even sounds like his own - it cracks and splinters, hoarse and choked with tears he's too stubborn to let fall. All he says is Fey's name, repeating that one simple thing over and over like a mantra, like it might bring him back if he says it a certain amount of times. It doesn't. Fey does not move, and his blood continues to drip, spreading outwards from his ruined heart in a growing pool of vibrant red. It matches the garish jersey he donned here in the past, as part of the Tenmas.

Twice, now, Alpha has seen his childhood friend die like this. Twice it's been his fault.

Distraught, confused, totally sickened, Alpha slips away from the others and back into the In-Between, intent on returning to his original coordinates to reset the process once more. He leaves a second death behind in favour of seeking another path, because this Ending surely can't be the right one. He must have done something wrong. It should not have taken so long. If he hadn't dawdled, it might not have provoked the Commander into doing this.

_Why can't I save you? Why can't I complete my mission without destroying you? Why can't I just be okay with this Ending and move on? Why...?_

It's like playing a game with multiple final scenarios, only in the real world there are so many endings they cannot physically be collected up and counted, and usually one cannot reset and try again for a better ending if things do not go according to plan. Time is a living, moving thing, a tapestry of threads flowing like a river, branching out endlessly; to follow any of these branches would lead to myriad realities all shifting and moving together, brushing and connecting occasionally and then spiraling off down their own paths once more. It is practically impossible to imagine the sheer scope of time and the expanse of the universe within the human mind. For each momentary blink of reality, each microsecond, a million threads spread out in different directions, leading down different paths of life depending on the choices made; and from there threads extend ever more, eternally, weaving their way soundlessly through the stars.

Which choice leads him on the right path? Which of these countless strands of time allows him the ability to succeed in his mission while granting Fey and the others life? There is no reason to kill the boy who started all this, or any of his comrades. Beating him down, crushing his will to fight - it's more than enough, isn't it?

There has to be a path with this Ending. There _has_ to...right?

...And if there's not...?

All of a sudden, his communicator spits static and sound into his ear and snaps Alpha back to reality. He hears the Commander yelling at him over the connection, telling him to _stop right now don't you dare take the leap, it's over now_. Alpha says nothing, even if every fibre of his being is screaming at him to respond, "It's not over. Not like this."

He's careful as he turns on the tracks, facing outwards to stare into the abyss of the universe. Even with the threat of the Commander catching up to him, Alpha has to watch himself and time his jumps correctly, else he'll fall into the wrong stream branching off from the main flow. A misstep like that could have disastrous consequences. It's hard to concentrate with all the noise in his ears, though, and Alpha falters just before he's about to jump - but a faint sensation of reassurance hits him just then, like a ghost's caress of comfort, so he embraces it, hangs onto it with all his might, and uses it as his strength. He springs into empty space, makes that brief leap into the unknown, and dives into the river to be swept away in an instant by the current.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

They stand facing each other amidst the lights, the river of time rushing beneath them, and a star has just died somewhere in the distance.

"It's the wrong way, Alpha," Fey tells him, a solemn edge to his voice.

"Why?" asks Alpha, frowning.

"We're not supposed to go back. Not to change things like this."

"It's my mission."

Silence greets him in answer and it spreads between them both, only this time it is less of a wall than it has been in years. The feeling of it is a strange one, but not one Alpha finds he hates, so he is surprisingly content to wait in this quiet for a verbal reply. Scintillating bursts of stardust fall like electric rain over the tracks. Alpha lifts a hand to brush some off his shoulder and finally, Fey speaks.

"If that's what's most important to you, I guess you should go." He pauses, then continues. "It won't stop me from trying to stop you."

Alpha's smile is thin and weak. He wishes Fey would say the opposite, as it might just save his life. But then, Fey is a stubborn and wilful boy, and once he's made his mind up there's no stopping him.

Yes. Fey won't stop.

It's Alpha that has to do something differently.

* * *

**.: + :.**

* * *

On the third time, Alpha feels himself breaking as the clock ticks closer, and wonders if these spider-webbing cracks are visible on his skin, spreading over his entire body. He'll shatter at any moment under this pressure, he knows it. It's ten seconds to arrival and Fey has just snatched the ball off one of Alpha's midfielders.

Seven. He has to move, to try and change this _somehow_.

"Fey!" he shouts up the pitch, to where the boy in question is now racing toward the goal, ducking and weaving past Alpha's team mates. The others of Protocol Omega look at him in confusion as he rushes past them but Alpha does not spare a moment to explain or give them any orders.

Four.

"Goddamn it, Fey, stop!"

Two.

One.

"_FEY_!"

And then the guns go off. Somehow, Fey avoids the initial blast as the military force materialises to one side of the pitch, though his attentions are immediately distracted from this decisive soccer game by the sudden confusion, his head snapping up to turn in the direction of the Commander and soldiers. Alpha watches the terror enter his wide, wide eyes and thinks he can hear the Commander say something through his headset, but he's not listening right now - all his focus is on Fey.

He spins to face him, then, as he has done twice before, skidding on the grass as he attempts to abruptly change direction without losing speed. The soccer ball is forgotten about, left to roll toward the goal. Fey's mouth opens to shout those words once more, "Save soccer and our old friendship!" and Alpha throws out an arm to reach for him as they race for each other.

A bullet catches Fey in the side; he jerks and cries in pain, twisting his body as he stumbles. The next two shots strike his heart and he falls, and Alpha immediately wrenches himself back into the In-Between. He vanishes in mid-air before Fey has even hit the ground, leaving the pitch to echo with the sounds of gunfire and his frustrated, heartbroken yell. The Commander is barking orders at him down the communicator again and he just wants to rip the damnable thing off and throw it into the blackness, but he can't, because imbedded in the communicator is the device that allows him to stalk the In-Between like this. He does his best to drown out the man's infuriated words and turn it to white noise, and soon finds something else taking its place.

That tiny voice inside his subconscious that would wail feebly at first has since grown louder, and now the sound is everywhere in his mind. Alpha finds himself faltering, wavering, his movements uncoordinated and unstable. His knees buckle under the weight of this grief and this mission he took on but no longer wishes to carry out, because he realises now that it will _never_ be the right way. There is no way to complete this mission without the horrific results he's witnessed multiple times now. If there was a timestream that merciful, it long ago dried up and faded away.

Alpha wonders why it withered. Perhaps his actions, his success, had devastating results he could not ever hope to comprehend somewhere off in the distant future, and caused some sort of error that erased the steam altogether, tearing it apart at the seams until all threads snapped and disintegrated. He's seen it happen, occasionally, though never on such a massive scale. Perhaps soccer is _not_ as bad as the Commander and El Dorado believe it to be, and the words drummed into his head are false, and the feelings from his childhood are honest and right.

Alpha realises, then, that his mission is already doomed to fail. It will fail forever, though he does not truly understand why. And he...he does not wish for it to succeed. Maybe that's why.

The voice in his head is loud with longing. He wants to see him again. He wants to see Fey standing before him, close enough that he can extend a hand and wind his fingers about his wrist, pull him flush against his body and kiss him under the stars. He wants to assure him it will be all right, that he'll do his utmost to save him no matter how many times he's endangered, that he'll never let him die again and if he does then he'll reset everything, over and over and over, and he'll go through it all again.

_I'll save you, I'll save you, I'll save you, I'll save you-_

...Did Fey know all along?

Alpha wakes up.

His mission begins today but this time, he won't betray his heart.

* * *

**end.**

* * *

there is no happy ending...

apologies if this seems a bit all over the place, and if you've read it before. i posted it up on my tumblr a few weeks back. anyway, i have a very obvious love for these two, but i'll try not to spam too much with a single pairing, and do my best to give everything a go. i have amassed the equivalent of the spanish armada in i11 ships by this point, so there's a lot i want to write.

that being said, there may be a second part to this.

much love to you if you enjoyed this (and take the time to leave a review, too).

yours,

riou.

_"I couldn't tell the difference between what is real and what I wanted to be real."_


End file.
